the uncanny valley of TV adaptions

[Kittykatknits]

For a moment from your quotes I thought GRRM was actually being critical of GOT, but no. He still keeps his mouth shut about it.

GRRM has been pretty careful when it comes to his public statements on the show. He's a professional, no way he'd trash it even if he despised it. Although, I don't think that is the case at all.

[Joyful Union]

GRRM has been pretty careful when it comes to his public statements on the show. He's a professional, no way he'd trash it even if he despised it. Although, I don't think that is the case at all.

He's definitely happy with it. It's essentially an author's dream come true. His work gets new found massive exposure, he gets to write one episode a year which gives him some involvement and doesn't distract to much from his writing, all the while getting to see his creation onscreen. Very few authors ever get that sort of opportunity And when you get down to it, the show is still much more faithful then adaptations of other novels to serialized television.

[The Mountain That Posts]

GRRM has been pretty careful when it comes to his public statements on the show. He's a professional, no way he'd trash it even if he despised it. Although, I don't think that is the case at all.

I think he really dislikes a lot of the changes, but he kind of sucks it up, since the show is making him rich as fuck.

[Joyful Union]

I think he really dislikes a lot of the changes, but he kind of sucks it up, since the show is making him rich as fuck.

I think he's a lot more understanding than you think, having worked in television before.

[The Mountain That Posts]

I think he's a lot more understanding than you think, having worked in television before.

I'm sure he's just happy to see it done, but there's no way he isn't disappointed in at least SOME changes.

Pretty sure most authors have stated at least one or two things they've disliked about adaptions of their novels. Hell, Stephen King called The Shining one of the worst movies he'd ever seen ever.

[Xasthur]

Just stumbled over this:

.....you had the royalty and then you had the nobility and you had the merchant class and then you have the peasants and so forth. But they don’t’ seem to realize what it actually meant. They have scenes where the spunky peasant girl tells off the pretty prince. The pretty prince would have raped the spunky peasant girl. He would have put her in the stocks and then had garbage thrown at her. You know.

Sorry, i find this kinda disturbing. I mean, we all love the dirty sinister world ASOIAF is, but i think especially the amount and nonchalance of rape in this story is sometimes doesn't do even a medieval world justice. Means, I don't buy it all the time.

People in the middle ages weren't monsters. Rape was considered as a serious crime. A prince would probably find a way to get out of it, but they didn't promote rape so openly like in ASOIAF.

[PatrickStormborn]

He's definitely happy with it. It's essentially an author's dream come true. His work gets new found massive exposure, he gets to write one episode a year which gives him some involvement and doesn't distract to much from his writing, all the while getting to see his creation onscreen. Very few authors ever get that sort of opportunity And when you get down to it, the show is still much more faithful then adaptations of other novels to serialized television.

GRRM said in a recent interview that he wishes he could write "three or four" scripts a season. I think that pretty much shows his frustration with the deviations the show is making. I'm sure he understands the difficulty of adapting ASOIAF, but it's definitely not as hard as the showrunners would like to insist.

[protar]

Seeing as Martin ages ago says he hates the spunky peasant girl character back-talking the nobleman, and then in S2 we get exactly that, I think that we can assume he hates Talisa at the very least. He says he used to dislike TV!Shae but that he's grown on him for whatever reason. I suspect he simply means got used to. While I'm sure Martin is very happy overall with the show, I think he also has to downplay any complaints he has for PR reasons.

[Joyful Union]

GRRM said in a recent interview that he wishes he could write "three or four" scripts a season. I think that pretty much shows his frustration with the deviations the show is making. I'm sure he understands the difficulty of adapting ASOIAF, but it's definitely not as hard as the showrunners would like to insist.

Its possible he was trying to say that he wished he had more involvement with tv series, because he enjoys writing for television (more than he enjoys writing books, I get the impression). It doesnt pretty much show that he's frustrated with changes, necessarily.

I dont think the showrunners were exaggerating much. From the sound of things, the schedule is hectic, there are constant budgetary issues, the have the largest cast on television, even with all the cuts. They're also filming in 5 countries, often two or three simultaneously.

You may think that they arent doing a good job, but I dont see how you can deny that it is incredibly difficult and challenging. No other show demands so much of there respective showrunners.

[Miodrag]

Actually, almost all the action in the shows you've listed is using guns, which certainly a lot easier than filming an action sequence with swords. Not to many fistfights in BB or The Sopranos. Maybe shows like the Tudors and Borgias would be better examples to compare.

There are many physical confrontations in “The Sopranos” that didn’t involved fire arms. Granted, not all of them were meant to show physical super-skills of their participants, but they all had to be intimidating, tense, scary, imposing (hope I got the right words, English isn’t my first language), which is not that different and certainly no easier task than the one GoT is facing in their action scenes – the memorable Tony-Ralph fight in Season 4 is a great example. And “The Sopranos” somehow managed it every time. They used all kinds of tricks – strange angles, rapid camera moves, increased number of cuts, to name a few – that are legitimate in the industry. But they never pulled anything similar to speeding the raw footage in the editing room.

“Breaking Bad” is perhaps a wrong example, since it does lack physical confrontations that are meant to impress the audience with participants’ abilities. In fact, Walter is often meant to appear clumsy and incompetent in fights.

Didn’t watch “Borgias” and “Tudors”. Where there sped-up swordfights? I’m not teasing, I’m only curious, honestly.

[Miodrag]

No other show demands so much of there respective showrunners.

Have to strongly disagree. The hardest, the most difficult, the most challenging task in any creative process is – starting from the blank page. Creating something out of nothing, i.e. out of your own imagination as the only available source. Compared to that, every other task is considerably easier.

Adapting is a process that has its difficulties and obstacles, no doubt about it. But, I’d say starting the story from tin air is much more demanding. David Chase and David Simon had much less to rely on when they were inventing and pitching and scripting their respective shows, than D&D did.

[Khal-a-bunga]

Have to strongly disagree. The hardest, the most difficult, the most challenging task in any creative process is – starting from the blank page. Creating something out of nothing, i.e. out of your own imagination as the only available source. Compared to that, every other task is considerably easier.

Adapting is a process that has its difficulties and obstacles, no doubt about it. But, I’d say starting the story from tin air is much more demanding. David Chase and David Simon had much less to rely on when they were inventing and pitching and scripting their respective shows, than D&D did.

Both David Simon and David Chase had a considerable amount of material (and in the case of Simon, at least, years of personal experience) to base their work off of.

And from a logistical stand point (so not even taking into consideration their writing and directing responsibilities), I'd have to agree that no other show demands as much from its show-runners.

[protar]

I'd say both are equally difficult in different ways. Starting something from scratch is hard from a creative perspective but it's a lot more flexible and you can cater the plot to your needs and the constraints of television. Working from source material gives you a nice (hopefully good) baseline to work with which is fortunate for the less talented writers like D+D, but you have a lot less freedom if you want to remain faithful and must struggle to adapt something which probably wasn't originally designed with television in mind.

[Miodrag]

Both David Simon and David Chase had a considerable amount of material (and in the case of Simon, at least, years of personal experience) to base their work off of.

And from a logistical stand point (so not even taking into consideration their writing and directing responsibilities), I'd have to agree that no other show demands as much from its show-runners.

Experiencing or documenting something is one thing. Making a compelling, remarkable, original, interesting story out of it, and filling it with characters that are able to make the audience care about them – that is something completely different, a whole new level. Many among us go through dramatic circumstances in our lifetime. Only the rarest among us are able to make inspiring stories out of it. I wouldn’t hold personal experience against any author’s imagination.

Once again, I’m not saying adapting is an easy task. Especially with the logistics that GoT requires. I just don’t think a good adaptation can stand up to a good creation, as far as how hard a task it is. Fitting Theon’s Winterfell-invading arch in a single season, for example, has to be a tough job. But, inventing Theon and his arch in the first place, has to be much harder.

Creation is more demanding even when adaptation is good, which, sadly, I don’t think is the case with GoT.

[ckongo]

Experiencing or documenting something is one thing. Making a compelling, remarkable, original, interesting story out of it, and filling it with characters that are able to make the audience care about them – that is something completely different, a whole new level. Many among us go through dramatic circumstances in our lifetime. Only the rarest among us are able to make inspiring stories out of it. I wouldn’t hold personal experience against any author’s imagination.

Once again, I’m not saying adapting is an easy task. Especially with the logistics that GoT requires. I just don’t think a good adaptation can stand up to a good creation, as far as how hard a task it is. Fitting Theon’s Winterfell-invading arch in a single season, for example, has to be a tough job. But, inventing Theon and his arch in the first place, has to be much harder.

Creation is more demanding even when adaptation is good, which, sadly, I don’t think is the case with GoT.

Your posts make a lot of sense. Who could argue that it's easier to make a great story that is suitable for TV than to take a great story and make it suitable for TV? Either way you have to get it to fit onto TV, but in D+D's case the hardest part (creating the ASOIF universe and story) is over. What's left is condensing, which can be done in a faithful way as season 1 proved. That's why I have less sympathy for them when they make changes that I feel are bad and unnecessary.

[Khal Pono]

Just stumbled over this:

Sorry, i find this kinda disturbing. I mean, we all love the dirty sinister world ASOIAF is, but i think especially the amount and nonchalance of rape in this story is sometimes doesn't do even a medieval world justice. Means, I don't buy it all the time.

People in the middle ages weren't monsters. Rape was considered as a serious crime. A prince would probably find a way to get out of it, but they didn't promote rape so openly like in ASOIAF.

From what I have read, the feudal system promoted monstrous treatment of those not born into a noble family. I'm sure you couldn't rape a noblewoman with impunity, but the chattel was yours to do with as you pleased.

A memorable quote from a professor of history at my college was that knights were essentially armored thugs on horseback.

As to rape being a casual thing, in war-torn societies rape is just a grisly matter-of-fact reality, even now. Look at Bosnia in the 90s, and look at Congo and Sudan even more recently. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/11/congo-rapes-g8-soldier

Perhaps not every man is a monster, but as Jorah says, "there's a beast in every man."